How to develop skills for your resume

By Abby Clark

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

Crafting the perfect resume that effectively showcases your experience and skills can be a daunting task. Advice from advisors, professors, parents and peers on how to approach your resume can get confusing pretty quickly.

While it is important to make sure your resume is aesthetically pleasing, concise and professional, the most significant part of your resume is the content. This is where you have the chance to reveal your personality, interests and passions, and what you have done to prepare for a career in communications. 

Thus, a great first step in making the content of your resume its best is to focus on developing your skills. This can be done in a variety of ways, whether it be campus involvement or simply investing in your skills in your free time.

Campus Involvement

 On nearly every college campus, there are a variety of organizations dedicated to helping students develop their skills in different fields. PRSSA is one such organization. Deciding which organizations to invest your time in, however, can be difficult. A good way to narrow down your decision is to determine which organization focuses on the skill you want to develop more, rather than one in which you have already invested significant time.

Investing Time Independently

 Another great way to develop your skills is to be creative on your own, or take advantage of online resources. Spending a few hours a month to delve into personal creative projects shows interviewers you are proactive and willing to invest time in your career.  

Challenging yourself to develop writing skills is a great opportunity. Creating an online blog dedicated to a specific area of interest, such as the music or film industry, can challenge you to consistently hone your writing skills and develop a personal voice.

Watching tutorials on YouTube, LinkedIn Learning, Lynda.com or Skillshare on Adobe programs like InDesign and Photoshop can also help you to gain some graphic design experience. Additionally, shooting videos or photographing friends is a fun way to learn photo and video editing software through such online resources.

There are many ways to develop skills for your resume, and it can seem complicated at first. Getting involved in just one organization, or investing a few hours a month independently, can make this process a little less complicated. These few measures can go a long way in setting apart your professional identity.